


Tonight I Can Write The Saddest Lines

by Flynn_Voltage_Taggart



Category: Doom (Video Games), Half-Life, Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Daisy is implied to be dead, Implied possible character death, Multi, They/them pronouns for Doom Slayer, Very Very Slow Burn, canon typical mentiona of gore and violence, canon typical mentions of gore and violence, post-combine shared au, sort of enemies to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:02:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28205049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flynn_Voltage_Taggart/pseuds/Flynn_Voltage_Taggart
Summary: The hands of fate, or more accurately, the hands of a time-warper are often connected to the cold void of indefinete sleep or to train cars to the cosmos. Sometimes their hands are masterful, and other times they cause collisions. Which one of these applies to pulling Master Chief, Doomslayer, and Gordon Freeman together to rebuild a post-combine world is yet to be decided.
Relationships: Doom Marine | Doom Slayer | Doomguy/Gordon Freeman/John-117 | Master Chief
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33





	1. 'The night is shattered and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

**Author's Note:**

> https://bigbadwolverine.tumblr.com/post/628915481532874752/doom-guy-x-gordon-freeman-x-master-cheif

Rebuilding the world was supposed to be fun.

At the very least, it was supposed to be exciting. It was supposed to be something that made you feel purposeful, something that made you wake up bright and early in your meager little settlement looking forward to a day of planting, cleaning water supplies, and rebuilding old structures from rubble and ruin. 

When Doctor Gordon Freeman woke up, all he felt was the twinge of pain from old fractures.

Part of his discontent could be attributed to the fact that the was not anything like the menial community rebuilding projects like he dully remembered from high school student leaders associations. He would like to at least pretend that if his work meant pulling weeds up by the fistful or spearheading remnants of combine dropships for proper disposal off the sides of crumbling highways, he would be happy. 

He knew that was not true. There was no way that such mind-numbing work would be good for him. The minute that he was allowed to shut his brain off from the tasks at hand his thoughts would turn inwards. He would be forced to confront the afterimages from the resonance cascade and his time with the resistance. He would see the eyes glassy with tears from his coworkers too paralyzed with fear to even attempt to save themselves. He would reflect on the bloodied hands of resistance members who waited a lifetime in hopes that he would save them only to die by his ineffective leadership. He would end up thinking of Barney, Barney who he very well might of sent off to die, Barney who he might never get closure on after months of absence. He might be even more miserable if his new work hadn't be happy to supply all new gut-wrenching imagery to fixate on.

Everyone seemed to be certain that once the one free man came in to destroy the Combine's stranglehold on the planet that things would magically get better. Gordon knew very well he was not some fairy godmother who could grant Earth's population the reprieve from twenty years of tyranny it so desperately needed, but there was still this twinge of guilt when a new tragedy bubbled to the surface. To consider the rescue, rebuild, and repopulate mission a string of gruesome failures and setbacks would be an understatement. 

Each new location made matters worse. The remaining Earthen population drifted from one Combine raised city to another, going down a dwindling list of numbers in hope there would be one decent enough to be settled. He had started to lose track after a while. It would be pointless to tally each time that an innocent civilian stumbled into an active nest of poisonous headcrabs or a rogue band of metrocops had made it impossible to access water that didn't eat through metal like it was a soggy napkin. His life became measured by brief rests in between stops on the repurposed inter-city train. Each move felt like he was herding what little was left of the human and vortigaunt population to one location to be squashed by a Combine resurgence like the cockroaches they were. That or maybe they would stage a revolt against him after realizing how much worse things had gotten since the resistance he sparked was set into motion. 

Still, he should be happy for the opportunity to rebuild the world at all, shouldn't he? Alyx seemed to be happy. How could she manage that seeing what miserable scraps of a planet she really had left to work with?

That was what was so unbelievably irritating about this whole ordeal. Everybody pretended this was normal. He had left a world of blossoming technology and interconnectivity, and within what felt like one blink of an eye, one step in the wrong direction, he found himself in a world that was left in shambles by a fascist police state. Then, he quickly learns that none of his friends seem to truly comprehend the severity of what has unfolded over the twenty years he was absent. How could thousands of human lives a day be considered an acceptable loss? When had keeping a hostile specimen of xenofauna as a pet, even if she was admittedly rather cute, become an acceptable operating procedure? Almost everything he had once known right down to the admittedly hideous tied up mullet right on the nape of his neck had disappeared with warning and what little was left was so distant and warped beyond recognition that he doubted he could ever organically connect to those old roots. He was alone at the edge of a universe on the brink of collapse, and he was supposed to put on a sunny smile as he dolled up its corpse. 

And if all that had been thrust upon him on his return to his sense of time and space was not enough to justify anything less than pep from the illustrious Freeman, this morning in particular was yet another one he would be forced upon a train to be hurtled towards yet another destination where his presence was meant to change the world. No pressure. It was certainly not a reason to want to cocoon himself in his allocated sleeping bag and pretend the ineffable plans of the universe weren't already in motion with Gordon as a key piece.

~~~

As Gordon stood in his scratchy, standard-issue civilian coveralls at the City 14 station platform, only one thought came to mind: he absolutely hated the train.

He hated the lead-up to getting on the train. The train was only being used so he could scout out the next city down the line. It meant that something irreparably wrong occurred. It meant that this unwanted obligation to preserve and protect human life and ingenuity had failed. It was a guilty, defeated thing to be riding this train.

Well, there was that, and on a much pettier, human note, part of the preparation meant getting in his outfit for dirty work such as this, his City 17 coveralls, which he absolutely hated. They were rough and starchy and now had patches of alien blood that would not scrub out no matter what chemical concoction he used on them. The garments were initially meant to create a uniform and downtrodden look for humans being exploited for their labor, and the ill-fitting costume still certainly held that power whenever Gordon was reduced to wearing it again. 

The guilt eating away at his inside aside, he still hated the train with every inch of his scant frame. The train rarely was run regularly, even in its hay day, and had been poorly maintained in all its twenty years of use. The rusting track screeched and cried out under the excessive weight of the dingy cars. The metal behemoth belched dark plumes of fuel from an unknown engine as it barely wobbled from place to place. It was a miserable thing, and it only served to remind Gordon how the world outside had seemed not to care about how ghastly they allowed things to get. 

And to think of that ungodly piece of scrap metal was to speak the name of the devil seeing as it seemed to be summoned right on time, clumsily wobbling to meet him.

It seemed to take all of the vehicular abomination's energy to shudder to a stop in front of its roaring crowd of one.

Gordon was tempted to kick the impression of a door on the train's side. He had never gotten that chance to hand deliver Barney's eloquently worded message to Doctor Breen, but this was close enough. It would be his one little act of expressing how much disdain he held for how people in his positions of luxury and authority sat back while humanity was torn apart and butchered by pieces of technology like this hideous piece of transit. Or maybe he really just needed to let his frustration out on something that wasn't an alien bug who's teeth would shred him into ribbons. 

He considered it. He always considered his options perhaps a bit too thoroughly when faced with anything adjacent to combat. He lifted his left leg then set it back down, disturbing the thin layer of dirt and dust collected on the unused platform. He lifted his right leg. It wouldn't fracture. He knew his bones well enough to known the aluminum siding couldn't do much damage. He was ready. Just a bit of follow through and...

The train's side reluctantly opened itself, offering Gordon passage into the belly of the beast.

With an off balance lunge forward followed by a limping step across the yellow safety line, the doors snapped shut behind him. The train had swallowed him whole along with what appeared to be two unexpected guest.

~~~

Master Chief Spartan 117, or John as he had become more strict about internally referring to himself too since his....difference of opinions with the United Nations Space Command (UNSC), was more than a little agitated to find himself awake on a flimsy train bench seat.

Sure, there was the indignity of being on the train itself. Even on Eridanus II, his home planet, which was considerably more rural than most of the beacons of advancement his duties had brought him to did not have such a shoddily designed craft. Why would it after all? By design, these vessels were clunky, slow, and inefficient, even in comparison to other motorized land vehicles which at least had the charm of off-roading. Plus, based on the thick stench that the vehicle was emanated whenever the door slithered open, it was running on an inefficient coal based propulsion system, something utterly wasteful even if it was accessible on the range of colonized planets. This train, based on the vast fleet John had been allowed access to previously, was the equivalent of sticking a grown man into one of those coin operated rocket ship rides. 

There was also the circumstances of finding himself in this new, potentially hostile situation. It didn't sit well with him. He had abandoned his assignment with the UNSC for very specific reasons, but this, being woken up in a dire situation in a failing vehicle felt eerily familiar. He had run so far away, and yet, here he was in the exact same spot but slightly worse seeing as he only had the core armor used in some of his first expedition to rely on, no power shields.....no Cortana......It gave an odd sense of helplessness that John loathed even more than the thought of losing.

His focus could not linger on any frustration felt about his new situation for too long. There were quick assessments to be made about his fellow passengers and his new holding cell. Quick and accurate intel is what kept soldiers alive, and there was no way in hell he was meeting his end on some primitive mode of public transport.

Further surveying the area revealed that this train cart was sealed off from the others on both ends to create quite claustrophobic quarters. The small compartment was lined with rows of flimsy plastic seating with suspiciously stiff fabric cushions. Counting the rows revealed the first passenger on this communal transport.

John's first observation was that this passenger was huge. Although they were noticeably shorter than himself, they were a greater deal wider than him, ever bit of exposed skin rippling with pulsating muscle with thick veins. That brought him to his next observation of how poorly dressed they were for the occasion.

His fellow passenger was in pajamas. More specifically, his fellow passenger was in a grey tank top adorned with a bunny themed skull and crossbones and white, red, and grey pajama pants straight out of the teen movies he vaguely remembered being catalogued as potentially relevant preservations of early Earth culture. He could have easily mistaken them for an orbital drop shock trooper with that build and that hellish aura about them if it wasn't for this lack of military gear. It was still off-putting. They had no evident military markings or gear, but they looked far beyond anything of civilian merit. They were something not yet easily defined, and John wanted nothing to do with them.

He returned to his seat, somewhere decisively in the middle of the train cand sat longed across the bench to have an optimal intake of his surrounding. Was it excessive? Yes. Did it ensure that the monolith of a person wasn't staring him down? Probably, and that was good enough to warrant the discomfort and oncoming motion sickness. 

Soon enough, his eagle eyed perch rewarded him with the first spotting of a wispy figure at the upcoming train platform. Another passenger? How many stops could this train have? How many people's eyes would be on him? 

The moment of tension was cut when the train halted and the passenger made himself well known. It was nothing more than some extraordinarily plain redheaded civilian in the smock of some odd dirty job. Sure, the new attention made John uneasy, but it was nobody important.

He was clearly a civilian. He was no threat, had no authority, and was not protected by any known objective. He was practicality off John's radar. The only notable quality about him was that unlike most civilians John had met, he did not have the incessant need to fill the air with chatter and worry. Well, that and the fact that his unnervingly big eyes were trained on him as if John might start foaming like a rabid dog if the new passenger blinked for just an instant. 

John did not like being seen and to a lesser extent did not like prying question into his past. Behind his quiet facade, the new passenger looked inquisitive. That meant trouble. It was best to leave him be. If only this passenger would get the hint. 

~~~

The Doom Slayer had become used to disruptions from their suspense dream-like state to be called upon attend to his duties. That did not mean that they ever were pleased when such instances occurred. 

Being placed on some outdated transportation was definitely not the worst thing they had woken up to. It was something they should have been grateful for, but they couldn't help but feel a tinge of disappointment they had not had work to immediately attend to, a straight path of destruction for the greater good that scratched this visceral, carnal itch in their brain and in their fists. Maybe this was finally a restoration mission. They had quietly wished for one of those. As much as ripping and tearing was fun specialty work, they generally enjoyed other people in all their little eccentricities. They personally missed home, a cozy little farmhouse with lots of space for a beloved bunny. Maybe this wouldn't be all bad. They had at least been afforded decent pajamas for the trip.

As they started to settle into the unaccommodating seat to watch the scenic destroyed cityscapes roll by, they heard footsteps, and not long after, they had two bright blue eyes studying them.

If they had been any less awake, they would have easily shot a fist right through the unwanted inspector.

The temptation was still there watching the stern, authorative expression play over the man's unnervingly, almost sickly features.

Granted, he didn't seem irredeemably awful. He had a slight height advantage and looked thoroughly built and weathered just enough to show combat experience over combat failure. However, he was clearly some sort of military man and most likely a high ranking one from whatever amalgamation of authority had been created during their naps based on the eagle centered insignia on his bodysuit. The Slayer had known plenty of officers like that, obsessed with honor and duty and sacrifice. They were the kind that signed up for duty positions like the one the Slayer had been given on Mars as punishment. They were always the first ones to be found dead. There was no place for martyrs on their team. 

A few moments passed. The inspecting passenger seemed to finally stop quietly grading and making notes with his piercing gaze. They gave a soft nod in acknowledgement of his presence. It was not returned. Devout military man and socially receptive as a sack of bricks. Yeah, there's no way they would get along even this well if it were not for the train walls bidding it so.

Their gaze turned back to the window.

It was mostly rubble and ruin interspersed with dense clumps of pine trees which branches brushed against the glass in a friendly wave. There was some peace to the activity.

They were almost lulled back to sleep when the train's door shuttered open and a bespeckled man stumbled and nearly fell onboard.

Their assessment of the new passenger was quick, but they felt his eyes linger longer than needed. They tended to have that effect on people. 

This new passenger was not short but noticeably shorter than either themself or the other passenger. He bore a scruffy beard and a lean fast that made his already wide green eyes look even more bugged out. He had an oversized denim coverall on like those vintage depictions of mechanics the men in their family often palled around with and held a backpack tightly to his chest. They already felt they knew him well, a rebellious and intellectual type that probably liked causing chaos in all the wrong places, but what had drove him to this extreme was still up for debate.

The decision was easy after that. Those kind of people were fun to watch, but they weren't exactly a safe bet when you already got suspicious glances for always looking like a bull in a china shop. Not to mention, if they were comfortable enough to proudly have a crowbar on display within their luggage, what else could they be carrying more covertly? There was something off about the seemingly cute and nerdy runt hugging his backpack at the back of the train cart, and as much as it was a dull itch to not know what was going on with the otherwise polite little fellow, they were not in the position to fuck around and find out. 

~~~

There wasn't supposed to be anyone else on the train.

Why were there other people on the train?

What entity could he have possibly offended so horribly as to have put him in this deathtrap with people he never met, and at what point was it going to be more efficient to send him to Hell rather than continually punish the fact he seemed alive out of pure spite and determination?

His eyes went first to a passenger in the far right corner.

They found cornflower blue eyes looking back at him, heavy with sleep. The mutual contact was quickly lost.

That passenger had something odd about them. Sure, there was the fact that they had at least half a foot of height on him and could probably crush him like a soda can with just their index finger, but it was more something about the energy they gave off. Instead of seeing either eternally burning rage or despondency in their eyes like most other resistance members had, there was a mix of tiredness and longing in that somberly set expression highlighted by the premature patches of white in their light blonde hair. It should have made him ache to see someone look so homesick, but it only made him uneasy that he could not conjure up the same feeling. He had never made time to mope, and it was odd there was someone who did when society was still threatening to cave in on itself. He didn't have the time or method to figure this passenger out now. It would have to stay that way if he wanted to do what was best for humanity's remnants.

Backpack clutched to his chest, he made his way to the back of the cart. 

He nearly stumbled again when he noticed a secondary passenger sternly looking him over.

This passenger was somehow taller than the other, and there was the immediate sense of otherworldliness.

As he settled into the meager seating provided, he was almost too nervous to double check that the bizarre voyager was still there.

Upon further glances, he taller figure started to set off alarm bells in Gordon's head. He had never had a good feeling about trains. Even after using them to drift from hopeless city to desolate, crab infested township, something in the back of his mind always called back to the Black Mesa tram in the void filled with infinite streaks of stardust with one clear choice set in front of him. The eyes of this passenger, the kind of sharp blue eyes with slightly inhumanely shaped pupils that peeled you down to the core of your being, brought all that fear to the forefront.

There was no way to prove that he worked with G-Man. He was wearing body suit with some sort of federal level emblem brandished on the arms and chest. Then again, G-Man clearly had his grubby fingers in with military authority to get that title associated with a high-ranking recruiter. Yes, even with that muddy blonde hair and spattering of freckles and the gap between his canines and top molar, put that passenger and a suit and he'd pass as next in line for G-Man's title. Maybe even because of those features. He looked human. To some, he might even have all the charming exterior of a polite farmhand. Maybe he was crafted that way to seem trustworthy yet strong, hard to refuse. Regardless of what the intent was, Gordon was going to keep his eyes trained on him until his stop, and then, he was going to quietly pray that he never would have to cross paths with such an anomaly again.

It was going to be a long ride.

~~~

As the train doors hissed open to reveal the decrepit station of City 13, all three of the passengers knew one thing with complete certainty. Under no circumstances, not even if it came down to saving the entire galaxy, would they ever work with the other two bizarre characters they had the discomfort of sharing this small journey with.


	2. I'm Not A Good Person

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'm not a good person  
> Ask anyone who knows me  
> I'm mean and bitter  
> And a failure at everything that I say I believe"
> 
> Gordon Freeman begins his scouting of City 13. He's as lucky in this endeavour as you would expect.

The regret that Doctor Gordon Freeman felt watching his two fellow passengers part ways at the City 13 train station was instantaneous.

It was only natural really. The bright young physicist was prone to mourning lost opportunities. Sure, longing to reclaim a split second chance to bludgeon a complete stranger with a crowbar was a bit orthodox, but considering the quick diversion his pathways in life had taken, Gordon couldn't completely dismiss it as a knee-jerk defense mechanism.

He could have done it. The unease that was creeping into his stomach as he made his way through the winding metal path of the train station could have been eliminated with one little action. That passenger very easily could easily be considered a threat. It would have been justified, and even if it wasn't, how many people's lives had been wasted out here for no reason at all. Why did he have to hesitate?

Doctor Freeman would like to give the rational response that it was because that passenger was at least close to being a human being and had a life with intrinsic value.

What a miserable lie to tell himself?

How many fresh recruits had he plucked off with callous precision back in Black Mesa? Sure, they were happy to return fire to eliminate him as evidence to his own mistakes, but there was something unsettling about how....giddy it started to feel when he stopped giving those marines a fighting chance. He doubted that the upturn of a smile was not an appropriate response for turning three human beings into a slick paste with their own turrets. He doubted anything that had happened since he left the HEV training area that morning was anything close to the range of acceptable human experiences. 

Even if those deaths were not being tallied against his abysmal view of some of the people he was supposed to be the savior of, it's not exactly like he could write off other Black Mesa casualties. He never directly contributed, but that did not mean much. There were moments of indecision just like the one that had just passed where he felt the warmth of a weapon in his hand and the pliant fear in some coworker's eyes. There were moments that would have been within protocol to protect the facility above all else that he could have made one move. It's not as if it would have mattered. Almost everyone from the facility was nothing but enrichment for the cakey clay of the endless surrounding desert. Those who were left had changed in ways he doubted he would ever understand in his artificially extended time on this Earth. 

The long and short of it was that while overall he had made choices for the betterment of humanity between science and b-tier action hero work, he was not really a good person, certainly not one above making a person's corpse into the train's new doorstop. 

So what had made him hesitate? 

Those eyes. Those eyes that were an obvious tell that there was something ethereal about the person behind them. They were like G-Man's. Perhaps that was why he hesitated. He had not felt the same sensation of the universe stalling out underneath his feet as G-Man could create, but there was some sort of weight around that passenger, some powerful aura that emanated from the proud way he carried himself.

Yes, that would serve as good of an explanation as anything else Gordon could piece together. It was certainly better than having to think about if that odd figure had a family that was patiently awaiting his return. It made this passenger a familiar threat, the same long arm of the cosmos that seemed to be hell bent on Gordon being as miserable as possible. In a way, it made these new endeavors seem absolutely pointless. Perhaps he was helpless against whatever forces opposed him, whatever forces manifested themselves as a striking corporal or something of the sort.

Helplessness was good.

Helplessness could be morphed into frustration which he could hone into a precise tool he could use to strike down those who opposed. All he needed was a target.

An enemy. That no-named solider would have to labeled an enemy for now. He had wasted enough time dragging his feet through the gloomy city hub contemplating some imagined moral dilemma. Whoever he was, he was an enemy, and enemies would be disposed of in due time. It did not need to be any more complicated than that. 

It did little to truly put Gordon's gnawing doubts to rest, but it was enough to push him forward out of the grimy station, through a poorly marked exit positioned between several long-neglected guard posts, and out into the city.

Well, out into the city was a bit of an overstatement. Out into a pile of rubble with air so heavy with pollution he could barely see his hands in front of his face was more accurate.

Part of him wanted to get back on the train and drift to the next nameless town and write this off as a bad dream. 

It wasn't an option.

He couldn't leave a potential threat or a potential well of resources for the weakened human population unchecked. As much as he hated to admit it, he had a responsibility to everyone who believed in him during his twenty year hiatus.

Gordon Freeman strongly believed that the best way to start something was by putting one foot in front of another. He had typically meant that in the form of thorough planning. He had been making future plans for ages, since he had learned about the paths his heroes had taken. He was good at boiling things down into steps, simple procedures that give him a completive edge despite his limitations. Needing to convince himself to actually start walking into a monument of wasted human potential was a bit unorthodox, but his philosophy stood firm. 

One foot in front of the other. 

He stumbled and felt a warm trickle of blood in his palms as a reward for grasping on to jagged concrete. 

No big deal. All he had to do was pick himself back up. He had been doing that since the second grade when he started being excluded from kickball games because of his new spectacles. 

With sore hands, Gordon slowly pushed himself up to a stand on the uneven ground.

With sore hands, Gordon failed to brace himself and earned himself a jagged cut across his cheek from a fragment of a window long forgotten. 

Gordon had another personal philosophy he felt applied well here. People did not learn and grow from failure but rather from success. The persistent pursuit of an activity or a lofty idea of what a person should be despite not possessing the proper capacity to accomplish these goals did nothing to improve somebody's spirit. Finding a niche, finding what somebody had a natural aptitude for, or finding a way even if it was untraditional to excel in and fostering those positive ideals would do much better for them as well as their area of interest in the long run. It was why he settled on his path in theoretical physics as opposed to some abstract notion of literature or something equally lofty and kind as his mother had quietly yearned for. It was why he was now going to sludge through the remnants of City 13 on all fours instead of falsely assuming that if he kept trying to walk that the city would magically grant him a clear pathway.

As he clawed his way through the seemingly endless pile of rubble, the tedious work allowed his mind to drift.

He wondered vaguely where the other passengers who were likely less versed in the commonality between most Combine constructed cities had gone. For all he knew, they could be in these same piles and cautious enough to not make noise. He had kept himself carefully evaluating the oppressive silence for the rattle and screech of headcrabs, but he had not been as keen on tracking human footsteps. He tried not to let that intense icy shock of pure dread washing over him take hold as he dug his chaffed hands further into the mounds of destruction and waste this city had to offer. 

No, there had to be other pathways on the edges of the city. Maybe it was a concentrated attack on the city center without any further surveys by Combine elites. 

Still standing structures could mean headcrab nest. Another twinge ran down his spine as he thought of the rebels being lifelessly piloted around by headcrabs who had chewed them down to little but taunt bone. He may not by rooting for his fellow passenger's survival, but he could decisively say he would wish a death by ravenous headcrabs on anyone. A headcrab could not be reasoned with. A headcrab would have no sympathy. There would be no mercy for his smaller form if he bumped into one of those passengers under those bastardly, parasitic horseshoe crabs. 

He found himself thinking about the other passenger on that train, the one who looked homesick or tired. 

In retrospect, it was probably a poor decision to not have monitored them just as closely as they had the mystery solider. It was as if something was compelling him not to look. He wondered if it was because they reminded him of Barney.

It wouldn't be a far stretch. Barney had that same look in his eyes when Gordon had first seen him at a much more prosperous city center. That look of being so tired of fighting and simply wanting to go home even if home was a foreign concept now was the exact same on Barney and the passenger. Those patches of white hair tipping their hand that they had been under such extreme stress were similar too. Even the bit of a softer stomach presumably from a subpar food supply was the same. It was uncanny and odd but strangely comforting there were people out there with that same faltering desire to be some sort of protective force. 

Yes, that passenger that could easily be being made into a meat puppet was a dead ringer for the old security guard he admired and then sent into the unknown and hadn't heard from in months.

Instead of the usual jolt of ice water he felt with such regrettable he realization, he felt heat on his back, the warmth of the sun that had been notably absent before. 

It helped him refocus. It was something that needed immediate attention. His old train of thought was useless. The similarities were all coincidental stretches to try to make this wasteland feel familiar. That was a stranger who very well might have been sent to finish him off. Sentimentality would get him nowhere. Explaining the renewed presence of the sun was the right way to march forward. 

It couldn't possibly be daybreak, could it?

What time had it been when he had first arrived? How long had he been sifting through meaningless rubble? His concept of time had not been particularly strong as of late. It didn't seem to matter much anyway. Who cared what day of the week it was? There was no reason to dread Mondays seeing as there was no work to potentially fret about being late too. Everyday was just a continual stretch to survive, whatever that meant at this point. He thought he's given up completely on keeping score, but it was in moments like this where he wanted nothing more to point to a clock, to cling to time to prove that his presence here and now wasn't just a stasis induced lucid dream. 

He decided to confront the source of the overbearing heat by lifting his head up from the rubble.

There was but one solid structure standing against the smoggy horizon. 

In that brief moment of complete clarity, Gordon knew exactly what he had to do.

He had to get there first.


	3. A Hero Can Be Like A Rattlesnake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I never did care for waiting  
> I better like compensating  
> And mama just taught me one thing  
> Sewing stitches like a madame  
> Living is overwhelming  
> Dying might just be your thing  
> And papa just taught me one thing:  
> 'Take things into your own hands!'"  
> \- Rattlesnake, Karabet Sybarit
> 
> The Doom Slayer navigates the City 13 Station and tries to male a new friend.

The Doom Slayer's first note upon stepping out into the City 13 station was that it was crowded.

It was not crowded in the way that most train stations were as people brushed past and bumped elbows going from point a to point b. Granted, that still would have been uncomfortable for them. Being such a formidable size, the Slayer got dumped into more often, and even before their reputation hung heavily over their head, being over six feet tall with the muscle mass to match and a typically stern if not grumpy resting expression meant that they often got either deeply scared or extremely disgusted looks from onlookers. Still, if getting rammed in the chest a few times or getting hollered at about some football scandal they couldn't be bothered to keep up with was the only cost to restore some sense of life to this place, they'd gladly make that tradeoff.

That was exactly the problem. The station was not crowded with people but instead the eerie rusting remains of people that had once been here. 

The first leaving of whoever once lived here was a train not dissimilar to the one they had just been on now left to rot on a parallel track. Symmetry was usually particularly fetching to them. They loved how it looked on a map, balanced and orderly and typically with something settled right in between the two matching halves. There was nothing here to be unearthed here though. The only thing in between the two perfectly placed tracks was them and a few loose floor tiles. There was no reason to lurk about in a place they had no connection to and no knowledge of, and yet, they found themselves watching their two fellow passengers disappear into vague figures and then shadows and then nothing but still frames in the Slayer's mind just in case this was the last time anyone saw either of them which was a poignant opposability in their line of work. 

They were alone.

It wasn't exactly an unfamiliar feeling, but it was different now. At the start of their journey, they had a home to come back, a cozy little place with shelves cluttered with little tokens of things that made them smile and their dear Daisy patiently waiting for their return in the good hand's of the neighbor. When that little nook of home and safety was flattened by some unholy hoard, there was still the planet and all of those who could not fight for themselves to look forward to. They had genuinely looked forward to being able to retire from the skull crushing business in style, laying bricks and cultivating little community gardens and perhaps restoring their collection of videogames to play with whatever remained of those who had defended Phobos with them. Even after their decision to stay to do clean up work regarding Hell's grip on their home planet, there was company, there was life, or at least something adjacent to life to fill the space with sound and movement and somebody to fill their fists with warm, squirming guts. This place was hollow and barren. Life had come and gone here, and there was no promise of things ever being the same. 

They approached the train parked parallel to the one that had escorted them to their unwanted leave of absence. Part of it was because it was the first landmark to get their bearings, and it would be important to note if they ever planned on going back. They sure hoped that going back was an option even if it seems people around here had burned bridges or let paths of return decay any beyond practical use. The other part of approaching this twisted hunk of metal was that dull hope of life, of comradery. They reasonably knew nobody was going to be in there. They knew that and yet...

The Slayer's fingertips gently traced the outline of a bunny onto the thick layer of dust covering the window. Their hand made a large looping circle, the oblongs of two pert bunny ears, and then a little face to peer out into the mostly abandoned station, a dot and two intersecting lines for a little bunny nose and a pouty bunny expression. It was a simplistic outline, maybe even childish, but it was good enough for them. It was good enough to mark the location for themself and potentially be a small signal of reassurance for anybody who passed through. 

They took two steps forward to press their face against the cold glass of a different compartment's window. Squinting through it, they spotted red upholstered seats on either side of the cart facing each other and loose papers littering the aisle's floor. Standing this close, they could picture the people who used to use this. 

That odd little dude who had shared the cart with seemed to use these trains regularly. He had seemed so serious and pragmatic about it too. The way he had walked off the train with such a sour expression and did not even notice that they were still standing here did not exactly sit with then well. That was a man on a mission. It was unlikely that anything would shake him from that path no matter how harmful it was even if they decided to tag along. If anything, it would just be a detour to figuring out what they were set here to do and whether this move was permanent. Still, it was hard not to imagine what things were like for him before disaster struck, to feel invested in the fate of the place they might be calling home.

Their fellow passenger looked studious in a sense. Perhaps it was just the glasses, but there was a certain look in his eyes, something cautious and investigative. They would like to imagine before all of this happened that perhaps he taught. He certainly had the scruffy but knowledgeable look of the professors plastered all over media or of those scientist in video games they kept around. The Slayer rarely actively wished harm onto others, and it was comforting in a sense to think of their fellow passenger bright eyed with an armful of papers sitting on the train as opposed to the weary person they had to leave behind. 

The mental image was easy to get caught up in. It was a matter of escapism that they had worked to master throughout their assignments. It was why they had taken a fondness to chibi action figures and cute little bunnies like the attire they wore now. It was much easier to think about the seedlings of things to come than the circumstances of their work, the unforeseen consequences to humanity at large. They got so caught up in their little thoughts of a cheery young professor enjoying the train, of life and light flowing through this tired city, they swore they saw movement inside the train cart.

It probably was just a trick of the light but...

Maybe the passenger looped back to check for them!

Maybe somebody had hidden in there and would be happy to have some assistance.

Maybe there was a small animal living within the rubble. Maybe it was a scrappy little mutt to run their hands over and help with gathering up fresh game, even if it was a bit morbid. 

These hopeful thoughts all came. shortly before they made a quick second decision to duck as a sun-faded train seat came hurtling at them along with a spray of glass. The Slayer was extradural thankful that whoever had sent them here had the foresight to at least arm them with a sturdy pair of combat boots. They were less appreciative of the fact they had nothing but their fist as an offense to whatever had been trapped inside the neglected vessel. 

Looking at it more closely, the assumption of a human figure was not completely incorrect. Their was indeed a human element to the creature crawling out of the fractured opening in the train's window. It just was heavily overshadowed to the presence of some quadrupedal parasite latched onto what little remained of its human host.

They wished they could have said that this sight was completely unfamiliar, but they had a sinking feeling that their work here would be tediously similar to their previous occupation. This universe also had an undead infestation. Sure, these zombies were based on some bizarre parasitic lifeforms that leeched off a human host until it was nothing more than a skeleton with tendons as puppet strings like the lost life shambling towards them now, but the work would be the same. It was a simple matter of elimination. 

Presumably set on using their strong and sturdy form as its next meal, the round little lump with no discernable eyes had determined their position enough to make an attempt to latch onto a new host. 

The Slayer responded as reasonably as one could when presented with a twelve pound leech armed with distinctly arachnid limbs throwing itself at them.

They punched the lunging sack of meat as hard as they could.

Instead of the expected sickening splat of the loose vermin hitting rusty steel, they found what looked like a nightmarish iteration of the horseshoe crabs they had gently stroked in dead-end, tourist trap aquariums as a kid trying to dig a vortex of pointed teeth into their hand.

Their reaction was admittedly impulsive yet effective. They thrashed their hand feverently like you would expect from a child bitten by a small creature. As if completely dumbfounded by the childish display, the creature lost its grip and ended up turtled on its back. They humorously noted it looked a bit like an uncooked chicken from this angle. That was not enough to warrant sympathy as their boot quickly found the center of the creature. With one wet crunch, the creature was nothing more but paste, and the Slayer's pristine pajama pants were soiled with a healthy smattering of mucus and blood from the fallen. 

A few things started to solidify as blood continued to pool and dampen their pajamas.

They were now very aware that there was no time to doddle. This was not a barren apocalyptic wasteland. This was an active hive of threats that may or may not have collapsed a civilization. They needed to push past the urge to explore this new environment after what felt like millenniums staring at the same five shades of red. They needed to move forward from the useless trains and out into the belly of the equally crowded waiting area by the platforms. 

They also realized any of their softer musing of the smaller passenger had evaporated in an instant.

The Slayer had witnessed people pushed to unimaginable feats by the pressure of a catastrophe. They had seen some of the most normal people nearly tear humanity apart when push came to shove. They had seen people become so trigger happy they downed their closest comrades. Hell, they had turned most of the bones in their commanding officer's body into sand for suggesting a more efficient maneuver that would kill innocent lives in the process. 

That passenger and whatever could be happening in his brain as he trudged out into what he must know was almost assured destruction was a different beast than all the Slayer had witnessed. 

There were only two reasons people walked into a crumbling infrastructure with roving undead hoards. You were either absolutely sure you were going to win or were so far gone and desperate that you would sacrifice yourself trying. The Slayer was not keen on finding out which one it was. 

The scruffy civilian passenger was a hazard that would have to be neutralized in some manner. They only hoped that when they rediscovered him that he still had the facilities to be reasoned with.

A realization started to sink in as they knocked through arbitrary mazes of wire and molding plaster. They had an enemy and an objective here now.

Two enemies actually. They had dealt with the undead before, and they knew well enough that the second larger passenger was exactly the type of military man focused on securing a victory that proper safety procedures would be an afterthought. Him not already having been overtaken by one of those rabid horseshoe crabs would be a small miracle. They had faced fellow marines warped into mindless vessels with rotting skin and single minded footsteps as they let loose a steady spray of bullets until eventually their short and miserable undead lives were put to an end by the Slayer's hands. It was by no means a pleasant tasks. They could not imagine anybody would enjoy putting their thumbs in the eye sockets of somebody they had been playing a lazy game of poker with a few days ago. It was not a pleasant tasks, but it was manageable. With an objective to visualize, the Slayer could do what they did best: rip and tear until it was done. 

Objectives in a sense made their work easier. The Slayer did not need a plan or a concrete set of steps to follow. They craved more of a gesture at a target, something to hone in on. Having something to do here cut through the visual and mental clutter and made them a perfect instrument to push through, locate, and handle their fellow passengers as well as the same old same old of saving humanity. 

Under more normal circumstances, the Slayer would have at least had the courtesy to look for the keys or passes to navigate the station without causing too much collateral damage. These were not ordinary circumstances. As far as they knew, there were zombies and demonic crustaceans eager to nip at their heels. This was an excusable amount of destruction in the name of self preservation. It was not like there were people eager to renovate an asbestos-filled train station at a time like this anyway. The fact the quickly constructed security rooms walls and shoddily rooted fences came to shreds like wrapping paper under their hands was only a slight motivating factor. 

Finding exits in maze-like infrastructure was something the Slayer prided themself on. It certainly helped when the walls amd dead ends of the mazes were simply suggestions in their Herculean fist. They estimated it was no more than five minutes before they found themself in front of a hearty wooden door. It wasn't record time by their standards, but it was not too bad considering the slightly delay of ravenous werecrab wounds. 

They rested both palms lightly on the door for a moment of pause to reflect on their progress so far. They had yet to let what they were about to do really set in. They did not really want to consider it. They had enough white hairs already mulling over what they had lost in battles with more personal and dire consequences, and they found it hard to imagine they had hopes of pulling the new look off as "distinguished". Aside from the ruddy dried blood trailing down their left hand, they were in good shape. They could keep pushing forward. It wasn't as if they exactly had a choice not to. 

As they burst out of the heavy oak door, they found themself on a small side street that was once an alley way but was now only contained by weak remnants of an exterior wall and a wobbly apartment stairwell leading to nowhere. Looking ahead, one building stood out from the others if only because it was still completely intact and standing strong against the ruins.

A new objective immediately came to mind, one more pressing than the extermination work they were likely sent here for.

The Slayer knew one thing clearly.

They had to get there first.


	4. 'Cause Tonight I Feel Like An Astronaut

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Can anybody hear me?  
> Or am I talking to myself?  
> My mind is running empty  
> In the search for someone else  
> Who doesn't look right through me  
> It's all just static in my head  
> Can anybody tell me why  
> I'm lonely like a satellite"
> 
> Master Chief John-117 shouldn't have any issues with a piece of cake cleanup mission, right?

The first thing John felt when the train finally squealed to a stop in the City 13 Station was an overwhelming sense of relief.

Part of it was that the minute the doors hissed open, he was able to exit and get away from the scrutinous gaze of his fellow passenger. He was used to getting uncourteous stares between being 7 feet tall and being deemed a war hero. This however was different. This man with his bugged out green eyes looked like he was attempting to use his unblinking stare to tear right through him. If he otherwise did not seem so extraordinarily average, John might have bought into the idea that the other passenger had some sort of psychic aptitude and was failing miserably at trying to set him on fire using the powers of his mind. Either way, John was not in the business of inviting unsolicited questions. He had better things to focus on.

Those better things were part of why he was so at ease as well. If the UNSC had been willing to let their best solider on glorified shore leave, the fight must be over or close enough to done that they would rather more palatable and human candidates rack up the easy honorifics. It meant that they had won, and his reward of sorts was a significantly less high-pressure mission.

Well, at least it seemed to be low pressure. John had been in cryosleep before this. Any hints of transport were likely lost to the light dream cycle that being defrosted caused. In his mind, it was no more than a blink between missions and battles to win. It just so happened that this mission lacked the traditional fanfare of post-cryosleep motor test and a quick debriefing about why the UNSC had done the equivalent of pulling the fire alarm by waking him. It was a bit odd for a military so governed by protocols to have simply dumped him on a fossil fuel guzzling vessel in the middle of nowhere without any indication it was training or an aptitude test, but he wasn't going to complain. The assumption that he would just know what to do wasn't exactly incorrect. In a way, these assignments were what he was born to do, or at least all that he strongly remembered being raised to do. That was why even as he was trying to catch up with the way the UNSC and time itself had rushed on without him he kept in motion, marching towards the first indication of goals to conquer. 

He was already making his way through the surprisingly antiquated train station structure. It was certainly a contrast, even in comparison to the more rural areas in areas of his old home planet. The crumbling building materials that had began to cover the tiles in a new flakey layer of dust looked more like a pastry than a protection from the elements. Honestly, how did people ever live like this? He could only hope that this was not some sort of long-term scouting mission. The thought of having to bump elbows with those undignified passengers or worse, having to share what would resemble a lowly animal's den more than a bedroom with them to stay warm was hardly something he wanted to live through. It was why he decided going the opposite direction of the maze of primitive security measures that he could only guess the civilian and the sleepwear agent would favor would be in his best interest. Not to mention, it was a straight line which meant that it would be almost impossible to get lost in.

Yet.....

It wouldn't hurt to have a bit of navigational assistance with his current track record. Plus, it meant contacting another part of what would this mission a cakewalk, his lovely copiloting ai and closest living friend, Cortana. 

"Cortana, drop a nav point."

No response.

That was fine. It was to be expected really. Cortana had what people patronizingly noted upon UNSC vessels as high spirits. John knew better than that. Cortana just knew how to cease an opportunity to toy with people when she saw it. He couldn't blame her. It wasn't exactly like there were plentiful sources of entertainment on the path to beating back the Covenant, at least not anymore. Sure, he certainly wished she had chosen a better time, but hey, at least somebody had kept their sense of humor.

"Cortana, could you please drop a nav point?" he asked, tone dripping with slight annoyance at the unnecessary delay. 

No response.

"Cortana, we really need to get a move on. Could you please drop a nav point?"

No response.

"Cortana, if you are trying to teach me about manners, aren't you about 45 years too late?"

No response.

That should have gotten a response. It was such an open invitation to banter back with him.

Something was off here.

Something was off here, and he wasn't sure he wanted to check exactly what the sinking feeling in his guts was telling him was true. 

"Cortana?" his tone was now eroded to nothing more than a whisper.

No response. 

His helmet. Between the disorientation of waking up in a new vessel and his unwanted travel companions, Beefcake and Blinky, he hadn't even realized that it was gone. He noted the absence of the heft of Mjolnir armor. It would be hard not to notice nearly half a ton of metal and integrated biolayers missing. His helmet however.....it had become like a second skin....it was his face as far as he was concerned. It would feel like looking for glasses already affixed to your own face. It would have been silly to check for something he was certain was right there, but when he reached a hand to his face, there was no cool metal, only warm, yielding flesh.

He checked again. His calloused palm met a deep set groove in his face.

He shook his head fervently. He was met with nothing, not even with the thump of a dog tag that could have Cortana's drive safely tethered to it.

He made a quick sweeping motion against the back of his neck and the sparse bristly hairs if a recent crew cut. Nothing was interconnected into that rather unpleasant interface. 

He made one more desperate search of his face as if the helmet might manifest under his fingertips. 

It did not.

Well, that probably explained why that poor, confused civilian wouldn't stop looking at him with those big old eyes. He would stare someone down if their face looked like it had been put in a panini press too.

The dull amusement quickly wore off though in favor of fear that sent a chill like ice water down his back. 

Whoever had sent him here was not affiliated with the UNSC. 

Whoever sent him here likely did not have his best interest at heart. Leaving him helmetless and without a semblance of supplies was ignorance at best and malicious intent to quietly eliminate him at worst.

It donned on him that he was stranded. 

He had been plucked up by a stranger in his sleep from the bowels of a UNSC vessel and dumped in some star system that did not even have a rudimentary understanding of ground transportation.

Not only that but judging by the wall of meat in bunny pajamas that he had shared the ride with, the person who coordinated this run in had access to other military vessels, perhaps across the galaxies if not across varied slip space subjugated realities.

Panic would have been an appropriate response. Despair would have also been fitting seeing something taken away from him all again. Even anger would have been acceptable. The Master Chief found none of these. He felt one thing alone burning in his core: the desire to win whatever sick game he had been roped into.

He had to keep moving forward. Moving forward had to mean answers. It meant getting his helmet back from whoever had stripped him of it. It meant getting Cortana back.

It had to mean getting Cortana back.

There was no light at the end of the tunnel he was now sprinting at full speed to get out of. It felt ominously fitting in relation to his recent discovery. It was only dark slivers of voidish sky with a few pinpricks of stars barely visible in the arching tunnel that welcomed the trains into the belly of the city. It felt oddly familiar. It almost made him want to drag his feet. If only that had ever been an option.

As he continued down the platform adjacent to the poorly maintained parallel tracks, the few stars millions of miles away from here, the place where he truly belonged, became the only thing to focus on. The dully flickering overhead lights that had by some small miracle stayed up around the station's entrance had not been so fortunate at the end of this passageway. It became a game of foot in front of the other. The only sound in the tunnel that he tuned in on was the sound of him counting those footsteps forward under his breath.

Stepping out of the cold and dark station platform, it wasn't that different outside.

More accurately, it was not that visibly different, even with the Master Chief's keen eyesight. A thick polluted fog rolled off of what seemed to be a peculiarly stagnant stream and obscured most of the landscape.

Without any additional direction help, he could only follow his instincts to trudge cautiously towards the source of the fog. It wasn't long before his boot met a particularly cakey piece of old man made structures. 

A barrier wall. It had to have been a barrier wall for the vehicle. It seemed a bit redundant in his opinion to so strictly adhere a vehicle to sluggish tracks and then further cage in its perimeter, but it wasn't as if whatever society had inhabited here were the best innovators or problem solvers if they sent out someone like that lamb-hearted civilian out here for scouting.

Approaching the wall a bit closer, he noticed a few additional details. The water the fog was emanating from was not some stagnant irrigation route but a slowly churning waterway that was choked off by this structure. Some animal with crooked, gangly legs obscured by the algae rich water who bumped and twisted and struggled against the molded remnants of the barrier wall proved that much. He also noted that his structure was likely much taller, likely having an additional use as a surveying platform at one point based on the amount of debris and the crooked bits of firmly standing barbed wire fencing that stuck out. Additionally, he felt confident guessing that this side of town was much more of a port before whatever caused a collapse that would put his Roman inspirations to shame. The ground in front of him were sun faded metal containers, some turtled over with wheels spinning listlessly in the wind and others tiredly bending in towards the dirt and rubble below. The details should have been concerning, but there was an odd comfort in knowing that most life did not make it here. He'd have the place to himself in no time.

As his eyes began to adjust to the unpleasant blanket of mist, something else came into focus. Past the crumbling wall, far ahead on the horizon, past what appeared to be a collection of boxcars and metal shipping containers that the Earth made a poor attempt to reclaim, there seemed to be one building left standing in passible condition, or at least a sturdy rectangular shadow to imply it. 

An old exercise from his early Spartan training came to mind. A goal typically marked by a bell set up high amidst an obstacle course which would yield a winning team and a loser who went without dinner. By principle, this wasn't that much different aside from the fact there was no team to be considerate of. There was nothing holding him back aside from miles and miles of worthless human junk to blow past. 

John instantly knew exactly what he had to do. 

He had to get there first.


	5. Winner's Circle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting to a simple goalpost may not be nearly as easy as any of them anticipated.

Gordon Freeman was more shocked to see that the figure rapidly making its way across the vast expanse of rubble was still alive and intact than he was at the fact that the figure was rapidly approaching with a makeshift weapon. 

Maybe the lack of a reaction was due to his nerves being shot after the amount of eager headcrabs he had found nesting in what seemed like ideal footholds for his trek.

Maybe it was because his body had allowed fatigue to set in now that he saw the building where he could wash the blood and dirt that had matted in his ragged auburn hair out. 

Maybe it was because he had the reassurance that whatever shoddily constructed instrument the figure was holding would be no match for the quick and deadly force of his pistol.

The figure approaching was a threat after all. After studying him on the tram, Gordon had firmly deciding he was not anything like the unceremoniously dubbed G-Man that had haunted most of his journey following the resonance cascade, but he was still by all accounts not quite humans, the build of his tall form too industrial and filled with sharp unnatural lines of muscle to be chalked down to eating his Wheaties and the glimmer and shape of his watchful eyes much more fit for a bird of prey rather than a foolhardy gunman. The fact that he was still, still able to be reasoned with against the high probability of being headcrab hotdog meat was only slightly inconvenient to what Gordon intended to do.

All he had to do now was grab the firearm neatly tucked away in his bag and take one simple shot to the enemy's wide, sickly pale forehead. The only difficult part about the task would be holding the gun steady with the fresh abrasions on his palms. 

Gordon's hand reached for the backpack that he had slung over his right shoulder. His hand pressed the starchy denim of his civilian jumper against damp sweat pooling between his shoulder blades. 

He was completely defenseless.

It was all too perfect, all too convenient of a loss to have seemed like a simple snag on a tree branch. Somebody was once again signing him up to be the stunt double in their own twisted version of an action comedy without telling him yet again. He wanted the luxury of acting out . He wanted his weapons back, so he could at least satiate that flare of carnal rage that came with the rediscovery that he had such limited control of his fate. 

He was instead rewarded by the ever so generous hands of fate with a rusted drainage pipe to his side.

The words minor fracture detected came to mind as his hand weakly clutched at his side. 

The words quickly dissipated in favor of a haze of static frosting over his normal subpar vision as something in his left leg made a sickening crack that made him lose his balance and thud into the rubble.

The enemy really did look like a bird of prey with his boot firmly planted on Gordon's abdomen. He did not resemble the noble eagle whatever amalgamated corps branded him with but rather a vulture impatiently waiting for a small rabbit to finally keel over so they could get to their meal of fresh carrion. It was unnerving to think of how accurate that was, how quickly this man with his eyes sharpened like a cat ready to pounce could dispose of him somewhere he might never be recovered.

As Gordon rested in the dirt, barely finding a steady pace to breath and feeling the blood and split blend into the rich soil below him, he felt an almost odd sense of peace. It was an end. Out here, even with the "mysterious" disappearance of his bag, there would be no higher powered intervention. He had blundered and lost a battle, and now, there was a notable conclusion where he laid trapped with some overzealous corporal keeping him pinned to the floor. It felt oddly familiar. There was no need to cry out for help. His voice had been so long out of use it would have been no more than a rusty caterwaul. No, it was just him and the endless, murky sky and the cold metal of a rusty pipe plucked from the earth against his cheek.

He was content to shut his eyes, just for a minute.

It had been so long since he had rested, truly rested. His body felt so sluggish and heavy underneath. He felt like that little bean filled plush platypus that had loitered at his old desk, just a sack of guts and sand that was easily ragdolled around by the slightest hit but was too weak to stand on its own. 

He just wanted to rest his eyes for a minute. He could fight the enemy off if he could just rest a few more minutes.

His vision sloshed in and out of a dark voidish frame. The solider who had stricken him down said nothing. He was not even gloating about this clear triumph as Gordon would have expected. The soldier’s eyes stayed fixated on the horizon as he continued to flicker in and out of consciousness.

He might have stayed there permanently if another boot had not yanked him from his teetering dance with vitality, something with much more force behind it that sent him skidding away from his captor and a potential ally. 

~~~

The Slayer's sole thought approaching the entangled pair of former passengers was that he wasn't going to let that crooked military man pick on somebody way smaller than him.

They knew in the back of their mind that Specs, the nickname they had brainstormed as they guessed that calling him little dude wouldn't end favorably, was a threat. He had certainly held up longer than they had expected, especially after all of those malicious mollusks they had seen on the trail up here, but that didn't mean he had any clue what he was doing. They had seen first hand what oxygen deprivation could do to a person. Those hallucinations can bring out a deep ugly will to fight that can make someone even as unassuming at the professor type they had shared a tram with a force to be meddled with. He was just a secondary threat in comparison to that big bully who was making a mockery of whatever phony government he was pretending to serve by stomping on an unarmed civilian.

It was why they had slid Specs out with the back of their boot. The small crunch was not promising that his ribs were taking it well, but the Slayer doubted that most of his bone structure was in good shape after being beaten with a walking tube of tetanus. They at least hoped it would keep him down and out of the way long enough for them to properly discipline the miserable excuse of a fellow passenger.

The man in front of him was not the Slayer's commanding officer, not on the surface. Their commanding officer had been nothing more than a sniveling excuse of a man, someone bumped up in the rank with a meaningless degree that only found joy in ordering other people to get their hands dirty. This man did not share that small, egg-like stature or the poor comb over soggy with sweat that, but he did share one clear ideal: a lack of sympathy for those who couldn't defend themselves. That was the only correlation that mattered, and there was only one way the Slayer knew how to get through to pond scum like him. They were going to lay this military man flat if it was the last thing they did.

Maybe he hadn't expected them to actually strike. Maybe he was too busy waiting for Specs to stop playing possum. Maybe he was just so used to not having other people challenge his actions that the possibility escaped his mind. Whatever it was, it served the Slayer well in getting a swift punch in on his jaw that might have closed his tooth gap if they had swung any harder. 

There was a moment of pause. Both them and the man who swiped pink-tinted spit from the corner of his mouth were locked in that terse moment of indecision after a first blow. They kept their stand wide and sturdy, partially bracing themselves and partially inviting him to get an easy retaliation blow on their firm, square jaw. Their cornflower blue eyes met with the much deeper pits of their opponent's. They almost knew what was coming before a fist made contact with their raised forearm.

Their opponent had ditched the weapon. They were leaning towards him being distracted. The possibility he was simply treating this as a test run of their strength was unnerving at best. It was best to focus on doing what they did best: close range combat.

If this had been under circumstances that did not involve interplanetary justice, the Slayer might have considered this fun. It had felt like a lifetime ago since they had really had a good sparring partner, somebody who could really challenge their ever-growing strength. It felt nice to use their strength on something that had some mindful resistance instead of yielding flesh and burst of unholy power.

Knocking him to the dirt was their first priority. There was nothing better than giving someone a taste of his own medicine, especially if said medicine was pressing a low-down officer's face into the dirt.

The hold didn't last long. Their face was hot with the sting of a full forced back hand, and they struggled for knees and wrist to throw their weight on top of the opponent to keep the advantage.

He fought like hell. They had to give this solider that. Maybe their initial presumptions of glory were wrong. The way that they felt fresh welts of teeth marks in their forearms and scrapes from ragged nails on their chest did not indicate a man who fought for glory or honor. It indicated a solider who's only objective was winning with little regard to what it cost him.

The Slayer couldn't be sure quite how they ended up on their back, although a forceful mule kick seemed the most plausible suspect, but they knew it ended any semblance of a dignified fight. This was no longer a graceful dance of trying to pin one another. This was a schoolyard roll in the dirt where rug burn rained king. They wished they could claim it was the most humiliating fight that they had been dragged into.

They had finally gotten him in just the right weakened positioned that they could have taken out those omnipotent cosmic eyes with a sharp jab of the thumb when the radiant light temporarily blinded them and left them frozen to the core.

~~~

The first thing John noticed was that the pain of a fresh set of bruises had suddenly evaporated.

The second and far more pressing thing that he had noticed was that he could not move.

Well, couldn't move was not exactly accurate. He could still breathe, and he could very vaguely wiggle his phalanges to ensure they were all still there. It was more like being stuck in a large vat of gelatin. Of all the ridiculous combat scenarios the Spartans were drilled with him, he would have thought a gelatinous cube of doom should have been an obvious one from what he had unearthed about early Earthen concepts of alien life.

It seemed he was not completely alone in this suspended state. His surprisingly well-matched adversary was still frozen in their somewhat sloppy form of pinning him to dirt that was no longer visible through this grand illusion of fast moving space.

This brought him to the third thing he noted. That scruffy civilian who he had been so close to neutralizing was somehow up and steadily approaching the source of this primitive planetary projection.

The source was....something to behold. Its entire appearance bordered on several points of uncanny valley for John's experience that put him on alert.

There was the most obvious factor that this being tottered between the lines of human and ethereal. Its exterior was a passable attempt at being human. It certainly had tried to take on the guise of humanity. It had plain hazel eyes and tawny hair slicked back in a clean cut manner and skin with the right amount of divots and wear around the eyes for its ages. Yet, something about it just wasn't right. Its skin rivalled the paleness of his own and was pulled too tight over some parts of the short and slender frame in a way that came off a bit too sterile and manifested. Its posture was far too perfect as if suspended by marionette strings. And then...there were the eyes, although hazel from the right angle, they glittered and hypnotized in a way no normal human's ever could.

More concerning was the way they seemed to flit in the middle of impressions of authority. From a distance, he could see how it might ooze governmental authority. It had that stern and weathered expression on top of a green tweed suit jacket and perfectly pressed corridor pants that reminded him of distant images of those he was taught to revere as visionaries and leading strategist. However, there were things that picked apart the facade, namely the informal slides branded in some sort of luxurious Earthen pattern that it wore over ankle socks. Another part was the calm way it stood waiting for the civilian to approach that lacked any disciplined vigilance. Any military authority was a facade. At best, it could pass as a politician. What a miserable disguise to choose.

Even with his keen eyes picking apart disguises as a force of habit from seeing one too many Covenant members splattered remains inside the husk of a disguise of a close teammate, he wasn't sure the civilian could. The fact that he would attack a government agent unprovoked was not indicative of life-saving intervention being a good thing.

The possibility that he knew the illusionist well enough to have both a deep-seated hatred and a knowledge of how to power through this gelatinous barrier wasn't comforting either. How many times had the human population suffered through the same vague threat of the universe being out to get them?

He returned his focus to watching his previous target's approach. His posture was all too obvious. John could tell just what he was about to do from a mile away. John could only hope that he was much more prepared for this spar than that last, if only to ensure that proper credit would be given for his own efforts at subduing him.

Before the civilian's fist had even darted out an inch for the punch he had been obviously winding up, he seemed to have been swept off his feet and suspended just the few inches off the ground the illusionist's stature would allow. So much for dumb luck.

"Tsk, tsk, Doctor Freeman," the being spoke with a voice that John could not peg to any specific region but held a certain sense of aristocratic poise in its cadence, "Is that any way to treat a new guest?"

So, the civilian’s name was Freeman.

More importantly, with what looked to be just a casual flick of the wrist from the illusionist, Freeman would once again be reunited with him and their fellow passengers.

~~~ 

"Do you want to know something? You three lasted far longer without trying to kill each other than I expected you to? Bravo! Marvelous job," the voice of this new void walker still retained the eerie echo of the G-Man but had a much more polished, bordering on snooty command of the vernacular associated with its facade.

The alien bastard had chucked Gordon like a rag doll, and that was its grand villainous monologue.

Well, alien bastard was just an educated guess as much as thinking of it as a void walker much like G-Man. It was a bit challenging to make thorough field notes in the past when all his bone in his hand were resetting from a third fracture. 

A cold hand reached out to tilt up his chin. He would have jerked back, but he quickly found that he couldn't. In fact, this was worse than any of the tunnels G-Man had ever put him through. This was like being in murky water where the pressure started to seep in and compress those not meant to be out in its depth. If these voidish tubes did not shelter their inhabitants from such mortal plights like pain or death, he was sure his splintered ribcage would have been happy to finish the job of his enemy earlier.

"At a loss for words, are we, Doctor Freeman?" the voidwalker asked with a smile that reeked of self-satisfaction at its own dumb joke.

Before he could even bite back with a flippant gesture, the voidwalker was back to relishing in its chance to dazzle a captive audience, "I am certain that you are wondering what fine mess you have wound up in. I would chastise you for your ill manners for not even addressing your host here. I am Reagan, and I have been assigned a case for our short tempered friend right here."

All eyes on the room flicked to him. Great. Just what he needed. Another reason to have the poorly informed militia try to trample him. 

Reagan amended, as if sensing the sudden hostility, "You have either chosen or been chosen to assist in tying up a few loose ends an old....constituent of mine left after abandoning his post."

There was still silence and stares that could have bored right through his skull.

"Tut, tut. I know you would be ungrateful for such a stellar opportunity which is I why I held on to some...reimbursements for your travel time."

Out of the emptiness of the void around as far as the eye could see, Reagan plucked out his gift first: his old reliable crowbar. Weakly, his fingers gripped around his trusty instrument. The reunion put him at ease for the first time in what could have been years.

John, that's what the taller military man with the bizarre eyes was dubbed, received an army green helmet with a reflective visor. He put it on instantly as if he needed to breathe. His hands reverently patted the back of the helmet then rested indifferent at his sides. Odd. Perhaps he was just checking that it was real.

Slayer, the name of the sturdier figure in the bunny pajamas with the tired eyes like Barney, received what appeared to be the foot of a tan rabbit on a keychain loop. They clutched it to their chest. A lucky charm? There had to be more to it than that, but he doubted he would have time to investigate.

"I hope you will find these useful in handling upcoming....unforeseen repercussions of events for which you were assigned here. I trust you boys will know what to do in due time." 

And like that, Reagan was gone. 

And like that, everything was just the same as it was when he had exited the train at the City 13 Station.

Three warriors now cast with an item of cosmic protection sat within the rumble of a once vibrant city facing a mission with no name or objectives and divinely given teammates that wanted one another dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See, Gordon is fine. Maybe this town is big enough for all three of them.
> 
> Also, Reagan deserves to wholeheartedly be bullied. 
> 
> As always, your feedback is greatly appreciated!


	6. Pecking Order

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seemingly forced together by external forces, the matter of control and rank come into play as Gordon suffers from previously sustained injuries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The silent protagonist team is fiiiiighhttting.

The first thing Gordon usually noted upon waking up from a stupor like this was where he was. 

It was not an option this time. His vision was blurry, and his head felt like it was filled with cotton. He was in no place to make judgements. His earlier wounds were catching up to him fast, and he was in no shape to outrun them.

If he could outrun them....

There was no proof that he wasn't dead already. Reagan had hardly felt real, especially considering how easy it was to move through that time displacement bubble every voidwalker just loved to pull out. Maybe it was a bit of wish fulfillment or a cosmic layover.

He felt more than he could actually see that there were two figures looming above him.

Dichotomy. Of course. The universe just loved its symbolism. Why else would he have a dorky last name like Freeman if there wasn't already a seedling of what he was to become planted somewhere far beyond his comprehension? 

Maybe the two figures looming over him were representatives of Heaven and Hell. How corny. The divine punishment of a scientist. He knew he had sustained a pretty major fracture, but he would still think his fizzling neurons would come up with something a bit more original.

Still, that must be a fun eternal fate to decide. He wondered how many points he was getting dinged for backing a stray marine over with a technically stolen Caddy.

He didn't have much time to contemplate it. His vision began to filter in through chipped and smudged glasses frames. 

No imps or angels.

No brimstone or pearly gates.

They were just people standing near him, or at least the closest approximations to humans the universe could cough up.

Not just people, not normal ordinary resistance members who were eager to heal him and protect him and get him away from the wreckage of City 13. These people were special. They were assigned to him. They were his burden if he could lift his head up.

The others that that peculiar void walker had wanted to group him with seemed to be fighting over something. One was seemingly a brick wall, posture closed off and expression appearing blank under his helmet. The other was much more expressive, hands waving and gesturing frantically and a facial expression to rival a snarling canine. 

Maybe if he strained under the heavy ether of the woozy haze of blood loss, he could figure out what they were arguing over at a time like this.

"It's too much of a risk, civilian or not, to help him without knowing who or what he is," the taller of the two presumed military members was speaking, the one had come within an inch of unceremoniously leaving his corpse in the middle of a scrap heap, John if he remembered correctly which judging by the puddle of blood blossoming was seeming less and less likely.

The shorter of the two military members, which really wasn't saying much all considered, the one that had been referred to as Slayer, seemed at whit's end when they replied, ""He's going not going to be ALIVE to question if you don't shut up."

Oh.

So, they weren't just fighting. They were fighting about what to do with him.

Great. It was like Christmas 1984 all over again.

And much like Christmas 1984, he had a feeling now as the keen eyes of both of his alleged partners turned to him that the moment somebody noticed him, things were going to go downhill very fast.

"Great. He's awake now," John noted. Gordon had to admire his candor about all matters if nothing else. If he could miraculously manage to get all the blood back where it was supposed to go, he would never have to worry about where he stood with him.

"So we can help him?" Slayer had a curious amount of enthusiasm in their voice considering the matter at hand. So be it. Most people who made it this far had an axe to grind. If some long lost buddy was the reason he wasn't go to become headcrab chow, who was he to argue over semantic?

John shook his head. It was peculiar how he was able to look almost directly at Gordon when issuing what might as well have been his death warrant.

"What am I supposed to tell him?" 

"You can tell him that I am worried about protecting the functional members of my team over a rogue with a gardening tool."

"I'm part of your team?"

"If you really want to play the rank card, I can....Slayer. I take it that since you are resistant to direction you must outrank a master chief petty officer. A lieutenant?"

"Corporal," the Slayer muttered under their breath with their fist tightly balled.

John let out a sharp bark of laughter. Judging by the posturing he had maintained throughout their brief and unpleasant course of interactions, Gordon had to assume that John was knowledgeable on the convoluted ranking system of a military not dissimilar to the one that used to exist here and that whatever the Slayer had said was embarrassing enough to warrant what could be considered an extreme reaction in John's case. 

"That's a rank E-4, Corporal Slayer."

The Slayer curtly nodded in response.

"I outrank you several times over."

"I'm aware of that, John."

John tilted his head which couldn't be comfortable in that clunky helmet. It's why he had forgone the helmet thing altogether. It was too much of a hassle, and what good did it do really?

"I'm aware of that, Master Chief....."

"If you are waiting for a last name, Freeman's going to bleed out long before you get it."

The attention was back on him. He should be relieved, but present company considered, he couldn't be so sure.

There was a footstep. Slayer was approaching, against orders. 

John remained neutral, reserved, not displaying the smallest sign of agitation at the disrespect of a direct order. 

Great. They had to choose his life as a subject of asserting a pecking order.

Slayer shuffled forward two more steps, the grimy ends of their pajamas bottoms that did not take mission precedence apparently close enough to brush against his leg.

"He's a liability," John stated rather matter of factly. 

He wasn't exactly wrong. He had been in John's shoes before. He knew how tempting it was to leave a weaker scientist for dead when they felt like dead weight. He couldn't blame the hardened leader for his disposition. No, it was much easier to mull over a kernel of self-loathing. He had fought tooth and nail to live this long and perform the "heroics" he had, and two people get dumped here and are leagues stronger and better than he could ever imagine. The nerve of some people. The weight of his own hubris....

Slayer cut off the dwelling by finally kneeling beside him and countering with, "He's the only one of us who's armed."

Slayer was also not completely wrong. Unless John was using that helmet for some superhuman energy channeling, his gift from Reagan was the only one that could yield progress and protection. Seriously, what kind of help was a rabbit's foot? Either way, maybe he wasn't completely useless here. Worst case scenario, his cadaver would yield an ideal field search.

"He will be your responsibility."

Just perfect. Demoted to the level of an imaginary pet in a parental bargaining game.

"I can work with that."

Slayer smiled at him with that statement. Were they doing him a favor? He supposed only time would tell if all this vouching for a dead man would make a difference.

"There's a first aid pack under that sheet of metal to your left then," John reluctantly conceded. 

He had known about a medkit this whole time and hadn't bothered to secure it?

This wasn't the time for questions.

It was the time to get strong enough to make it through this miserable mission with most of his appendages attached.

There was a small weight on his chest, but with how shallowly he was breathing, it might as well have been an anvil. It must be the medkit. He couldn't crane himself enough to see. He was more just hoping, hoping that relief from this miserable state he was in would come soon one way or another.

A small click. Slayer must have found one of the compartments to open. It must mean relief was getting closer.

He closed his eyes, eagerly awaiting relief to wash over him.

A few moments passed with nothing but the sound of blood rushing in his ears.

Nothing...

He opened his eyes again. 

The Slayer sat beside him with two strings of medical tubing in their hands and a rather puzzled expression on their face.

Right. These kits were all wired for Combine gear. His old ports being scabbed over. It was like having a can with no can opener. 

John's sharp blue eyes were trained on both of them. It would have been unnerving if he hadn't stepped in to advise, “Break the container and apply the green substance directly to the wound."

"You sure? It looks a bit..."

Toxic? Like nuclear sludge? If he had the energy to speak, he could fill in the gap for Slayer happily.

"Trust me. This is the best we have for right now." 

"You used this stuff before?"

"Close enough..."

The weight was removed from his chest. If he could take a deep breath, he was sure it would have felt great.

There was the sound of glass crunching. Did Slayer really think the best method to forcefully open it was to just smash their entire fist into it.

"Can I..." Slayer made a vague gesturing motion with there right hand towards his standard issue civilian jumpsuit. He presumed that meant his left hand was filled with salve. 

He nodded. It wasn't exactly like he had many choices in the matter.

The air was cold where the top of the jumpsuit loosely sprawled out around him, but Slayer's hand was warm where it needed the alien bug paste into the mess that was his abdomen.

"Sorry for...making things worse.." Slayer apologized under their breath as they continued the thorough application of the antlion grub salve.

He shrugged, or attempted to shrug. What's done was done.

"Sorry that John's such a big Navy-trained tool."

Gordon made a dull wheeze at that before wincing. It was probably worth it.

If he was with anyone else that clearly wasn't willing to have him dead if he proved to be too much of a hassle, it might be nice.

Was this the break he asked for? 

He could feel his vision blur at the edges. He was far too relaxed. Exhaustion was catching up to him again.

He could rest for just a second. Slayer wouldn't say anything...

"We need to go," John announced, gaze thoroughly scanning the horizon instead of dreadfully trained on them

Slayer shook their head. At least somebody had some sense. There was no way he was getting up.

John continued more urgently, "Something's approaching. It's in our best interest to get out of its way."

"First the kit location and now this. Sounds like you're staging it."

"I am doing what it best for all of us. That's what a good leader does."

Slayer glared at John, unspoken scabs clearly being picked at. If he had not been using them to keep himself upright, he was almost certain that would have been another physical altercation, one that ended a lot less neatly than Reagan separating them. 

"Do you trust me, Freeman?" John had turned to him now with a rather pointed question.

That was a huge question. Did he trust him about his instincts about this place? Judging by the fact he had formally had a pipe ready to take out a headcrab just as easily as he had cracked his ribs like dry bramble, he would have to concede that this John character at least knew what he was doing.

But looking at the way John's pale hand beckoned to him....he knew that he meant more than just for a temporary reading for an oncoming threat.

He shook his head. He barely liked the idea of working with someone like this long enough to not bleed out on the packed dirt, let alone for some mystery mission.

"Very well," John said with the slightest tinge of disappoint in his voice, "Cortana, show yourself."

Cortana?

A small feminine figure with a cloak of swirling streams of data to contrast soft blue skin and an asymmetrical navy bob manifested in the palm of John's hand.

"This is Cortana," John offered.

Well, wasn't it so nice that John had so much faith in his and Slayer's powers of deduction.

"I am the artificial intelligence system in charge of assisting John with his various missions," Cortana dutifully filled in the gaps.

An ai integration system for such complete 

"You were the one who knew about the medkit?" Slayer questioned with cautious optimism in their voice.

Alright, maybe John had his reasons to state the obvious...

"I told John to retrieve it as soon as I was here, but he's more stubborn than he looks."

He weakly nodded in agreement from his position on the sidelines.

"So when Master Chief is giving us intel..."

"It's probably me, and trust me, I have a vested interest in keeping us both alive."

Surprisingly, Slayer offered out a pinkie finger in favor if a hand for Cortana to shake. 

Surprisingly, she accepted.

Her focus turned to John again, "Promise to not get into any more trouble."

"You know I can't promise you that," John replied with a small hint of playful rhetoric in his voice, almost as if the two had done something like this before.

Gordon couldn't be sure, but he'd like to think John and Cortana were sharing a smile as he lifted her up to the apex of his helmet's visor. She tapped her head against the helmet's front, and in an instant, she was gone.

It would be a much more touching reunion if the ground underneath him wasn't seriously vibrating beneath him.

There was a strider towering over the horizon, spindly legs threatening to collapse the one sound building left in the city. 

"I hate to say I told you so, Freeman..."

"Then don't."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait for a short chapter, but I hope you enjoyed.
> 
> Trust me, it's not as bad as it looks where I am leaving this off.


End file.
